


Parenting

by samariumwriting



Series: Trans Claude AU [12]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Childhood Memories, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Character Death, Trans Claude von Riegan, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 22:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20804297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: It's an uncomfortable truth that, at some point, Claude will need an heir. One evening, as if by chance, he finds an orphan trying to sleep in his gardens, and it gets him thinking about parenting, his family, and the future.





	Parenting

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all :) this fic has spoilers for Claude's ending so pls keep that in mind if you don't know about all that.
> 
> Two quick notes before we begin: this fic uses @kyleenim's (twitter) Claude parent headcanons as a basis for his relationship with his parents so if you like the sound of them please check her work out!
> 
> The other note is that this fic deals a bit with how parents (in this case, Claude's) may react to their kid being trans. If this is difficult for you then please skip the section that begins with “Mother, father, what would I have been called if I was a boy?”, which goes up to the next paragraph break with a -
> 
> Sorry for the long note and I hope you enjoy! :)

“Going to war over this would be the worst possible scenario,” Claude said firmly. He didn’t understand why he had to explain his position on this over and over again. There was no reason to go to war with the lords in the far north east because they’d failed to deliver all of the taxes they owed.

“Your Majesty, with all due respect, the province in question by far has the sufficient material wealth to deliver on these demands.” Claude understood why he had advisors. He also knew he was meant to listen to them. But he was also fully aware that this particular advisor was talking shit.

“So, hypothetically, let’s ignore the fact that the northwestern territory is recovering from the drought of last year,” Claude said, “which means that they’re lacking in reserve food and need to rebuild their stores in the event of a difficult winter. Ignoring all that, obviously, what do we gain from going to war with them?”

“The taxes you are owed and the authority of your sovereignty, your Majesty,” another advisor said.

“Fair enough,” he replied. “A good reason, if their policy was harming Almyrans or directly challenging my authority. It’s money we would only have to double aiding them if famine occurred. But say we did decide to go to war with them. What would we lose?”

“Soldiers and money, your Majesty, but-”

“But nothing,” he said firmly. “Soldiers are people. Soldiers have parents and children. You take them away from their homes, leaving the fields untended, their families unsupported. Money spent on war is money not spent on education, and medicine, and those who have to fend for themselves. Do you get the picture?”

Collectively, Claude watched the advisors deflate, each of them bristling with unspoken grievances. He waited for one of them to speak. “It is just something to keep in mind, your Majesty,” one of them said, “that your position of power is only as strong as your leadership. Given your long absence from the court, your lineage, history, and lack of heir, your authority is perhaps not as certain as it could be.”

“War changes none of that,” Claude said firmly. “War creates animosity far more than allies, especially if we were to go to war against our own people. Fear is not a basis on which I wish to rule. This conversation is over.”

The advisors looked between themselves and shuffled their notes to their next piece of paper. The advisory meeting went on. Claude’s mind was still stuck on the implications of the conversation.

He was perfectly aware that his hold on power was shaky if he upset too many people. The people of Almyra were gradually being made aware that he had spent nearly half his life as a noble in Fódlan, and that didn’t exactly endear him to them. He tried to mitigate that by being good at his job, but that could only go so far.

Claude also knew that one aspect in particular hung over his head. An heir. From Fódlan to Almyra, some things really never did change. He’d had to watch out for a dagger at his throat from the moment he was introduced to his grandfather, just in case someone decided to take out the final hope of the Riegan house. He’d suffered through constant implications that maybe he should marry, maybe he should consider the future, since before he even turned twenty.

Claude had always just...had other things on his mind. He’d never thought about if he would ever marry, not seriously. And when people always put marriage and children next to each other, it didn’t make him want to think about it any more. He didn’t think he could even have children, and even if he could...he never wanted to take on that kind of burden.

He tried to put it out of his mind for now. There was absolutely no reason that he wouldn’t live to at least a relatively old age. That was what he told himself, anyway. He had to focus on more important things, like making sure his advisors didn’t declare war on an entire province for a minor tax infraction.

-

As the legitimate child of the King and Queen, Claude had been named heir from just about the moment he was strong enough that the doctors were relatively sure he’d live through infancy. It was a public ceremony, where his name had been announced to the world from a balcony high in the palace, and he’d been held, wrapped in green silks, for everyone below to see.

Of course, he didn’t remember the ceremony. He hadn’t been announced as Claude or as Chavdar, and he didn’t know how people reacted when they saw his slightly-too-pale skin, or his mother at his father’s side.

What he did remember, however, was when he was renamed as his father’s heir a few years before. He had, of course, always been the heir. That hadn’t stopped when he ran away, even when he’d been presumed dead for a year or so. He was as legitimate an heir when he returned as he was when he left.

It was his father’s idea - he’d discussed it with Claude’s mother after their letter writing resumed towards the end of the war, and proposed the idea when Claude had been home for a few months. The ceremony was...well, Claude would be lying if he said it was a bad moment in his life.

Dressed in a golden tunic embroidered in green, Claude had stood before a smiling, cheering crowd, when he was named Chavdar, future King of Almyra. It became one of the happiest memories of his time spent in his home almost immediately. There was a long way to go before every moment could have the same happiness and acceptance as that, but even then he felt like he was taking a step in the right direction.

-

“What’s having a baby like?” he asked that evening. He hadn’t been able to get the conversation from the meeting out of his head all afternoon. So now he was here, at his evening meal with his mother, asking her what having a baby was like. She looked at him with a strange expression on her face.

“Painful,” she replied. Curiosity was the name for her expression. Maybe a hint of amusement. “Your head was almost as large then as it is now.”

Claude laughed. “I gathered it would be painful,” he said. He didn’t exactly know...much when it came to childbirth, but he’d worked out that much. He’d heard Marianne fretting about horses giving birth. “I more meant what it was like after I was actually born.”

He’d never really talked to his parents about what he’d been like when he was a child. He occasionally got a small piece of information thrown into the middle of conversations, but because he’d spent part of his childhood running away from the way they’d raised him they tried to avoid it. Even after these handful of years since he’d returned, it was still a little bit of a sore topic, and it would probably hang over his mother for the rest of her life.

His father had admitted, once, that he felt terrible about the way they’d raised him, even if he’d seen nothing wrong with it at the time. He’d hated that Claude had hurt so much in his childhood, and that there were things he could have done to help but didn’t. It was a long, long conversation that Claude didn’t think they’d ever really finished.

“Being a parent was exhausting,” his mother said, after a moment of thought. “Neither of us had much idea of what we were doing, and we didn’t want to trust your care to anyone else, just in case. But it was also rewarding, and I’m not just saying that because I’m talking to you.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you were,” he said with a grin, and she fixed him with another look. She knew him too well for him to get away with a question like that.

“Do I get to know why you’re asking?” she asked. Skies above, she sounded concerned. He supposed it was a little out of character of him to ask something like this.

“It’s not all that important,” he said. He’d be able to put it out of his mind eventually. Just not quite yet. But she kept fixing him with that pointed look, and he had to answer. “Someone mentioned today that my position isn’t all that secure without an heir.”

“Was it a threat?” she asked with a frown. Claude shook his head. Out of context, perhaps. But threats weren’t that advisor’s style. The man in question had no children and was on the older side, too. It was a warning, nothing more.

“No, it just...got me thinking,” he said. “Because there’s no one else to inherit the throne if something happened.” Ideally, one day, there’d be no need for a king to hold all these lands together. Ideally, one day, people would just take what they needed and give to others who needed more. But he couldn’t guarantee that he’d be able to create that kind of world in his lifetime.

“I think you’re probably okay for now,” she said, a hint of levity in her voice. He knew that thinking about a time when he wouldn’t be around was hard to bear, but it was the reality. He didn’t want to shy from the truth anymore. “I wasn’t pregnant at your age, and your father was older than me.”

It was a hollow comfort when Claude couldn’t help but see threats around every corner, but it was something. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t know if I’d want a baby anyway. They seem like a bit of a hassle.”

“Oh, they are,” his mother said with a laugh. “They’re worth it in their own way, though. At least mine was.”

The conversation hadn’t answered any of Claude’s questions, really, and he was no closer to figuring out the whole mess of his thoughts when he went out to the gardens after dinner. He lit the lantern next to his favourite bench and took out a small sheaf of paper. He wished he had time for some reading for fun, but reports from Morfis would have to do.

It was warm out, and his thoughts drifted almost immediately. He was a little tired, but mostly he just couldn’t get those circling thoughts out of his head. Talking through his feelings a little with his mother had helped, but not much.

He didn’t want a baby. He didn’t need to have a child yet. But at some point in the future, he’d need an heir, and at this point in time there weren’t many people younger than him who he trusted. It was difficult to trust when anyone he knew could be angling for the next top spot in Almyra because he didn’t have an heir.

It was impossible, and he couldn’t think of a way to get away from the problem. The longer it went on, the higher the pressure to pick someone, and the harder it would be to find someone he knew he could trust. It would also get harder to do the things he wanted to do if his position got more insecure. Things could fall apart at any second if he made the wrong choice too many times. Who knew? Maybe he’d made a fatal misstep already and he didn’t know it yet.

He was overthinking it. He knew he was overthinking it, and yet, as he sat there, he could see the shadows flickering closer, the darkness that could be holding any number of attackers closing in (that wasn’t true - he trusted that the security of the palace was enough, and he was far from defenceless), and rustling sounds that could be his papers being caught by the gentle breeze but could be someone lurking out of sight.

It was unlikely that anyone was there, but just in case… Claude lifted the lantern at his side and swept it in a slow, wide arc, illuminating the surrounding area. As he did so, a shadow moved, darting out of sight. His eyes narrowed. The figure was small, but he hadn’t managed to get a good look. A thief, perhaps, or an assassin. Not someone with a lot of muscles, for sure.

Or… “Hello?” he called out. Leaving a weight on top of his papers on the bench and drawing the dagger he kept at his waist, he stepped forward, keeping his back to the hedge. He heard movement again. Feet hitting the ground, one after the other. Someone with a small stride. Someone who was afraid.

“I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me first,” he called. Maybe not the most reassuring of statements, but he couldn’t exactly let his guard down. He held the lantern in front of him with his left arm and kept the knife close to his chest, making his way towards the noise.

The light emanating from the lantern eventually caught the small figure of a now unmoving child. They were dirty, dressed in a tunic in a colour Claude couldn’t even discern, and they didn’t have shoes on. They were staring up at him, trembling, dark eyes wide with fear.

For a moment, he watched his surroundings. It was dark out, and he couldn’t see any further than the light in the lantern. For a moment, he considered blowing the candle out so no attacker could find him. But that wouldn’t help; the child in front of him knew he was armed, so he’d just have to take the risk.

Claude put the knife away, keeping it as loosely attached as he could. Just in case. The whole time, he fought to keep his gaze steady, always watching the child. They were so small and so afraid.

“Sorry about that,” he said, an easy smile coming to his face. He didn’t get a smile in return, but he wasn’t expecting one. “Can’t be too careful when someone’s creeping about in the shadows. Can you tell me why you were doing that?”

“I’m sorry,” they whispered.

“No, I’m not angry,” he said, trying to bring his tone down a notch. He wasn’t used to talking to children, and it probably showed. “It’s okay. I just want to help you get home.”

The child bit their lip and shook their head. “Okay, no going home,” he said. He didn’t know if that meant they didn’t want to go home or if they didn’t have one, but that could wait. It wasn’t exactly dangerous here, but the gardens weren’t a place to sleep. It would get cold overnight, and this child didn’t have a coat. “Do you want something to eat?”

They said nothing. Their eyes were fixed firmly on Claude, and for a few moments, they watched him. “Uh huh,” they said, and nodded. Claude smiled at them again, still receiving nothing in return, and slowly reached out to them. They shook their head.

“Okay,” he said. “Just walk beside me, okay? My name is Claude, and I’m not going to hurt you or anything. I can guide you inside.”

They nodded, but didn’t reply, walking next to him when he picked up the lantern and made his way back to the palace. He took the side entrance to the kitchens, waving to the woman cleaning down the surfaces at the end of the evening. “Oh, your Majesty, good evening!” she said, bowing quickly. “Is there anything you need?” Her gaze moved quickly to the child at his side.

“Do you have any leftovers around?” he asked. “I have a friend here who might appreciate something.”

“Oh, you’re a sweet little thing, aren’t you?” the woman said, ducking down to meet the kid’s eyes. They looked away, but didn’t move. “Of course we have a couple of things to spare. Just one moment, your Majesty.” With that, she started bustling around the kitchen.

Claude watched her for a few moments before directing his attention to the child again. They weren’t trembling anymore, which was a good sign. Maybe they’d been cold outside in the dark. Now they were in the light, however, he could see just how dirty and thin they were. He hated that this could even happen.

“There’ll be food in a moment,” he said, ducking down like he’d seen the kitchen staff do. “Do you want to go and find somewhere to sit down?” After a moment, they nodded, so he led them over to the far side of the kitchen where several cushions were spread on the ground. They seemed happy to sit down, though their wary gaze stayed fixed on him.

It occurred to Claude now that he’d left his politically sensitive papers out in the gardens, but this was much more important. He didn’t really know what he was doing, but so long as this child was fed and had a place to sleep tonight, he could work on that tomorrow.

After a few minutes, the woman brought over a plate of bread and fruit. “Here you go,” she said, placing it in front of the child. “I just finished my work for tonight, your Majesty, was there anything else you require?”

“No,” he said, and smiled at her. “Thank you. What’s your name?” He tried, at least, to know the names of most of his staff, but people like this who worked mostly at night didn’t often cross his path.

“Rosana, your Majesty,” she said. She bowed again.

“Well thank you, Rosana,” he said. He’d have to mention this to a more senior member of the kitchen staff, because she’d been nothing but helpful. “Have a good evening.”

“Oh, thank you!” she said, and she left rather quickly. It was probably the only thing Claude really did dislike about his status; he couldn’t be nice to anyone without them all worrying that they were about to do something wrong. But if that was the price he had to pay for lasting change, then he’d pay it a thousand times.

His eyes returned to the child in front of him. They’d already started on the bread, tearing a few pieces off and practically shovelling it all into their mouth. Then they moved to the fruit, not even stopping to look at him. They didn’t look anywhere other than their plate until all the food was gone, and then they looked up at him, licking juice from their fingertips.

“You were hungry,” he observed, and they looked down before nodding. “Hey, that’s okay. It’s not always easy to feed yourself when you’re out on your own. Are you on your own?”

They nodded. “My mother got very sick and they took her away,” they said. There weren't any tears in their eyes, but Claude could see their lip trembling.

“That’s very sad,” he said, “and I’m sorry to hear that. I’m sure they took her away to a good place.” He didn’t know how to tell children about death. How did you explain that someone was probably never coming back without upsetting them too much? “Do you have anywhere to go?”

They shook their head, and their grip tightened around the hem of their tunic. There was something going on there, but Claude was fine not knowing what. If this child couldn’t go home tonight, that was fine. There was plenty of space in the palace.

“Do you want to sleep in a room here?” he asked. “You can say no, but it’s cold outside and little children like you should be in bed at this hour.”

“...okay,” they said, clumsily pushing themselves up from the cushions. This time, as they walked through the hallways and up two flights of stairs, they walked a little closer to him, their gaze eagerly fixing onto every detail. “Are you important?”

“You could say that,” he said with a laugh, “but it doesn’t matter to me, so it doesn’t need to matter to you.”

“Okay,” they said. They sounded a lot more cheerful now they’d eaten some food. They still seemed very quiet, and Claude knew next to nothing about them, but that was okay. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been a sceptical, guarded child himself.

After a few minutes of walking in silence, Claude came to the empty guest bedroom closest to his own rooms. The kid hadn’t said anything for the whole time, and they were starting to look pretty tired, but that didn’t stop their jaw from dropping when he opened the door to the room. “I’m sleeping here?” they asked, with more than a hint of disbelief in their tone.

“If you want to,” he said. If they still wanted to leave, he wouldn’t stop them. He might try heavily to dissuade them, because it really did get cold at night sometimes and it might be difficult for them to find somewhere safe. He didn’t think they’d refuse, but he also didn’t want them to think they were trapped in any way.

They nodded, and almost immediately dashed to the bed, clambering onto it after a moment. He’d been about to offer them something clean to wear, but it looked like they weren’t bothered. “Thank you, Claude,” they said, immediately getting tangled in the blanket as they attempted to worm their way under it.

Laughing, Claude made his way over to the bed to help tuck them in. “No worries,” he said. “Do I get to know your name?”

“I don’t have one,” they said firmly. He regarded them with a questioning look but said nothing more. Just so they knew that he knew they were lying. “I don’t like it,” came the quieter amendment.

“Okay,” he said. He couldn’t exactly say no to that. “Goodnight, my little friend. I’ll come and get you for some breakfast in the morning, okay?”

They nodded, and by the time Claude had drawn the curtains so they wouldn’t be awoken by the dawn, their eyes had closed. He watched them, just for a moment, before he went to the door. Then he watched again, just to make sure they were breathing evenly. He smiled to himself, closed the door as quietly as he could, and went back down to the gardens to fetch his papers.

He’d just got himself into something else he needed to sort out, it seemed. But he couldn’t have just left them there, out in the dark. He thought, just for a moment, about Cyril. About how there were people all over the world who had suffered because there was no one there to look out for them.

Claude lit the lamp at the desk in his room and resumed the reading he needed to do for the next afternoon’s meeting. He’d been left with less time to sleep, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about something like that right now. He’d done the right thing, getting up to check for intruders, even if he hadn’t found quite what he was expecting.

-

The next morning, the kid was far more energetic. They greeted him with a sleepy smile when he opened the door and practically skipped beside him when he went to find them something to wear. They ended up in another tunic, yellow and embroidered with red flowers. It was something Claude had owned when he was a child - he didn’t even know why he still had it, but there it was.

Once he’d found them something, and noted to himself that he should find them some more clothes before they left (if they left any time soon - Claude very much doubted that there was any space in the few existing orphanages in the city and he didn’t have the heart to leave a child homeless), he made his way down to the private dining room with the kid in tow.

His mother was there, which wasn’t surprising; Claude was later than he normally was, given a certain other factor. She looked up when he entered, and her surprised gaze almost immediately fixed on the child standing beside him. “Claude,” she said, an amused smile instantly forming on her face. “Do you have something to tell me?”

“No, of course not,” he said, smiling back at her, hopefully the picture of innocence. She knew full well that he didn’t have anything to tell her. “You can sit down,” he said, turning to the kid. “I’ll grab you something to eat.”

They glanced between Claude and his mother, and then shook their head. “Can I come with you?” they asked.

“I think you’re scary,” he said to his mother, before leaning down to meet the child’s eyes. “That’s my mother. Her name is Tiana, and sometimes she’s scary but mostly she’s very nice.” They looked back at her again, and she smiled, but they didn’t move. “You can come with me this time,” he said, relenting. He heard his mother scoff.

He got both of them a plate of food, letting the child (who really needed a name - he understood if they didn’t like their given name but it felt demeaning to call them the child all the time in his mind) pick a couple of items and filling the rest of the plate with foods that made the breakfast resemble a balanced diet.

They seemed happy to hop up onto the chair next to him at the table, and started eating the moment Claude put the plate down. His mother watched them both and immediately let out a laugh. Claude shot her a look, hoping she wouldn’t scare the kid, but naturally she continued.

“I think she was hungry, Claude,” she said, her words punctured with laughter. The child looked up, looked at his mother, and beamed. “Well, look at that smile! Did you not even ask her if she wanted food?”

“I prioritised clean clothes,” he said with a chuckle. He hadn’t seen the kid smile like that at all before. “You could have said you were hungry, kiddo. Don’t feel like you have to trail around after me.”

“I wasn’t really really hungry,” the kid said, and that was when the implication of that smile hit Claude. Yeah, he knew where a smile like that could come from. Immediately after she spoke, she went back to shovelling down her food. She was making quite the mess, but Claude couldn’t blame her if she hadn’t been eating much lately.

“Sure, kid,” he said, turning back to his own breakfast. He had the morning mostly free, he just needed to do some paperwork, but he needed to work out how to amuse her until he could dedicate a bit more time to working out where she’d go from here. “Do we still have all my toys from when I was little?” he asked.

“Probably,” his mother replied, still watching him. There was that appraising look on her face, like she was planning to ask him an awkward question he’d have to think about before answering. “Your father always did like to keep those things.”

There could be a couple left in his office, then. The one that was sort of meant to be Claude’s office, but he only used it for official half casual private meetings rather than work. He could probably search through the shelves quickly enough to find something for the kid to play with.

When she’d finished eating, she waved goodbye to his mother and followed him out of the dining room. When Claude glanced back, his mother’s eyes were still fixed on him, and she had a knowing smile on her face. What she knew, he couldn’t work out.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, as they made their way up the stairs together. He tried to keep his voice light, so as not to spook her. She was a lot more confident than she had been the night before, but he was worried that this would drive her away again. “You’re a little girl, am I right?”

She looked at him, her eyes wide with something close to awe. She nodded. Yep, he must have hit the nail on the head there. “Great,” he said, and she smiled brighter than anything he’d seen in a long while. He felt his heart seize up just a tiny bit from just seeing her face like that. “So, how about we think of a name for you?”

“Okay,” she said, and she inched closer.

“Right,” he said, taking the steps slightly faster. What he didn’t want anyone to come across was him naming a small child. There were enough rumours going around about him anyway and he did not need to add to them. “We can do that, then.”

When they were in his father’s office, he pulled a couple of cushions off the chairs and set them down on the floor, sitting cross legged opposite the girl. “Okay, what kind of sound do you want it to start with?” He’d considered asking for a letter, but he didn’t know if she’d be able to read - he couldn’t tell how old she was and he knew that not all of the city children could get an education.

“Umm...sh,” she said, her brow furrowed in concentration. Sacred earth, she was cute. He was not prepared at all for how cute a child could be. He was used to noble children from Fódlan, and they were usually absolute terrors who always ended up bringing down a table full of glasses in the middle of formal events.

“How about Shideh?” he asked, thinking mostly of her smile. She thought for a moment, and shook her head. “Okay, right. Shadi?” She thought for longer this time, but shook her head again. Claude paused to think, looking at her. “How about...Shahnaz?”

With that, her eyes lit up, and she smiled at him so brightly that he thought, for an instant, that his heart might just burst. “Shahnaz,” she repeated, and smiled again. At that point, Claude was starting to realise that maybe she wouldn’t be leaving any time soon.

-

“Mother, father, what would I have been called if I was a boy?” He had asked that question when he was twelve, one evening when they were all eating dinner together at the end of the day. He hadn’t seen his father all day, and when he went to the market with his mother someone had thrown stones.

He hadn’t had a good day, and it was about to get much worse. Silence fell over the dining table. They both knew, of course, that he wasn’t the little girl he was meant to be. He wasn’t meant to talk about it.

“You don’t need to think about that,” his father said. He didn’t sound annoyed, just...tired. He was tired too. Tired of his name, the way it grated on his ears, the way it rattled in his head until his whole body hurt.

“But what if I want to know?” he asked. He wanted to know. He needed to know, because he had nothing to call himself.

“There is absolutely no reason for you to know,” came the firm reply. There was a hint of the tone that told him not to say any more. So he said more.

“Isn’t curiosity a good enough reason?” he asked. His mother was looking at him. Her eyes were sad. He didn’t know why she didn’t just talk to him about it, but she never said a word. Maybe she just didn’t want to hear his reply.

He loved his parents. He didn’t know why they seemed to be determined to hate him. He didn’t want to hate them. They weren’t giving him any choice.

“There is no reason good enough to ask a question loaded with such wishful thinking.” It was his father who spoke. It was always him who had the most to say. He was tired of it.

He left his plate. He left the rest of his food at the table and left the meal. He was still hungry, but these conversations always made his head spin and he wanted to cry. He needed to be away from them. He needed to be away from here. He needed to be away from himself.

He hated crying, but he’d been doing a lot of it these days. There was so much frustration. He didn’t understand himself anymore. He didn’t understand his parents. He didn’t understand how he was meant to look at himself or think about himself or talk to people or anything. He didn’t know how to do anything and he didn’t want to do or be anything. He didn’t want to exist.

It was nearly an hour later when there was a knock on the door, and he looked up to see his mother gently push it open. She came to sit in the chair at his desk, the chair she always sat in when she wanted to have an actual conversation with him. These days, when his room was the place he hid from everyone else, he hated seeing her sit in that chair.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Fine,” he lied. His eyes still stung from the tears he hadn’t been able to hold in.

“You should stop prodding, honey,” she said. She sounded upset. “It hurts everyone, you included, and it’s not getting you anywhere.” He listened in silence, fixing as neutral a look on his face as he could manage. “I know things are hard for you right now, and you just want to start getting out there in the world, but-”

“Please stop,” he said. He’d heard it all before. She stopped talking. “I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it.” He didn’t think he could talk about it. It hurt too much. Just thinking about talking about it made his throat ache with the tears that would follow. He didn’t want to cry again tonight.

“I had two names picked out for you from Fódlan,” she said, her voice quiet. “The name you were given, and a name for if you were a boy. That name was Claude.”

“Okay,” he said. He didn’t trust himself to say anymore. He would cry again if he tried. He waited. She waited. It was a difficult silence. After a while, she sighed, and left without another word.

Claude. He half hated the Fódlan half of himself, for causing so much anger. But the other half wasn’t hate, it was pride that he and his mother could stand against all of that and still live. So Claude was fine. In the darkness, he smiled to himself. Claude was a good name.

-

Shahnaz was a fast learner, though not easily entertained when Claude had other business to attend to. Which was often, seeing as he ruled a country, but he poured as much time into helping her as he could. He told himself that it was because he wanted to give her all the possible advantages for when there was eventually space in an orphanage for her to stay, but in reality…

Well, in reality, if she was going to be gone within a month or so, there was no need to teach her how to shoot a bow. That was something parents did with their children and Claude was perfectly aware of that. Which was probably why he was currently teaching Shahnaz how to draw a bow.

“Okay, keep your right hand steady,” he said, guiding her fingers to loosely grip the wooden curve of the practise bow. A real bow could break her wrist if he wasn’t careful, and if he knew anything about Shahnaz after the week she’d been staying here it was that she’d almost definitely do this unsupervised if he took his eyes off her.

“And then I pull this back!” she said, gripping the string with her whole hand and pulling it back. Claude laughed gently and shook his head.

“Not quite,” he said. “You have to do it gently. Too much power will strain your wrist and elbow. Try doing it with three fingers; it takes a bit more effort, but it’s a better stance.” She struggled to pull it initially, but after a few tries and rearranging her feet, she managed it. “Great!” he said, and bent down to fetch a handful of training arrows from the bucket at his feet.

“Can I shoot one now?” Shahnaz asked, reaching out for an arrow. Claude paused. “Please?”

“Sure,” he said, handing her one. And, immediately, she went for the mistake everyone went for when learning how to shoot a bow. He couldn’t blame her, because he hadn’t started her off with the arrow at all, but she gripped the end of the arrow while pulling it back instead of the string.

He let her do it; it wouldn’t do to just tell her everything without letting her learn on her own. She pulled the arrow back and, squinting at the target (that also probably wouldn’t help her, but he could get to that lesson later), released the arrow. It didn’t even make it halfway to the target, and she frowned at it in frustration. “What did I do wrong?” she asked.

“You need to grip the string rather than the arrow,” he explained, and she nodded. “That way, it can go further.” He handed her another arrow. “Try again? I bet you’ll hit the target this time.”

“Okay!” she said, taking the arrow with a newly brightened smile. Then she turned into the stance Claude had shown her, nocked the arrow, and drew the string back. She glanced at him and he nodded, trying to look encouraging. She turned back to the target, looked down the arrow, and let it fly.

It hit the very edge of the target when she was probably shooting for the middle, but it was a good start. She cheered, jumped on the spot, and wrapped both her arms around his waist. “I did it!” she crowed. “Look, Claude, I did it!”

“I can see it,” he said, trying not to let the emotion in his chest come forth too much. It was hard, with her arms wrapped around him. “You did a good job. Do you want to go again?”

“Yes, yes please!” she said, hurrying to get back into the shooting stance. He corrected her foot placement, and they went again. And again, and again, until he had somewhere to be and Shahnaz looked tired (she insisted she wasn’t, but Claude took her back up to her bedroom anyway). Her arrows didn’t get much closer to the centre of the target, but pretty much all of them hit, and she was having fun. Claude decided not to ignore the happiness bubbling up inside him every time she smiled.

-

“Have you ever had a girlfriend, your Majesty?” one of the courtiers asked him, the same afternoon he’d first taught Shahnaz to shoot. The courtier in question was, to put it lightly, a young man who didn’t put much stock in ceremonies or formalities. It was why Claude liked him so much, and he was always interesting to talk to.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said with a laugh. It was entirely possible that, in his days in Fódlan, he had accidentally done something that looked like courting to someone, but otherwise he wasn’t aware of anything in particular. He’d been thinking about other things and he’d rarely been in any way interested in taking the time to have a relationship like that with someone.

“Perhaps a boyfriend, then?” he asked. This courtier was very lucky that Claude was a relaxed kind of king, because he didn’t think he’d encountered anyone in a position of power who would take these kinds of comments on a regular basis (except maybe the Professor, who had taken everything anyone threw at them with nothing more than a quirked eyebrow).

“I’ll be honest, Faridoon, I haven’t really had the time,” he said. “I didn’t vanish to have an adventure for ten years or anything like that, I was doing something just a little important.”

“You’ve said,” the man said with a smile. “I was just wondering, well, because every month you get even more of these marriage proposals. There was one last week from a noble from Fódlan, offering his daughter in marriage. Do you ever think about accepting them?”

“Not really,” he said. That was the truth of it. He’d never accept an idle marriage proposal from someone he didn’t even know. There was no one in the world he knew who he’d marry in the position he was in now. He didn’t need marriage for power or political leverage with anyone in Almyra or in Fódlan. If something came from Dagda, maybe he’d have to consider it to further his aims, but nothing had, and he had no desire to seek one out.

Maybe he just didn’t want to get married. He’d complain about people not taking no for an answer, but they did take the answer. They just read it as ‘not yet’, and asked again. “And, well, I heard some serving staff say something about how you had a daughter,” Faridoon said. “So I thought maybe you didn’t want to get married because there was someone already.”

Claude laughed. “I did not have time for that kind of thing six years ago,” he said. At least, that was about how old he thought Shahnaz was. She seemed to think she was somewhere close to five years old. “The little girl isn’t my daughter. I found her trying to sleep in the gardens a week ago and there’s no room in the orphanages in the city.”

Claude hadn’t really checked if there was room. He also hadn’t taken the chance to pay someone to look after Shahnaz. There were lots of things he could have done to get her a life somewhere else that he hadn’t done, actually. “What’s her name, then?” he asked, and from the tone of the question, Claude knew that he already knew what her name was.

“Shahnaz,” he said. He’d known, when suggesting it, that she probably didn’t know what the name meant, but he knew it was a name often given to the children of kings. Faridoon shot him a knowing smile.

“But she’s definitely not your daughter?” he asked. Claude shot him an empty smile back, and Faridoon laughed. “Of course not, your Majesty. Though it is quite the coincidence that she shows up just when someone suggested you produce an heir.”

Claude always chose not to tell the members of his court that he was fairly sure he was incapable of ‘producing an heir’. It was something he preferred to leave to their imaginations, because they were all too afraid to ask him and the lack of knowledge gave him a degree of power over the issue. “There’s no need for that, is there?” he asked.

He knew why he was asking. He didn’t know if he should be thinking of Shahnaz like this, and he should ask her first, but it was...it was worth checking. He knew that he could name whoever he liked as his heir, really, but he didn’t know for sure if it was the ‘done thing’. Faridoon would know. “What do you mean, your Majesty?” he asked.

“Oh, you know,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t need to produce an heir, do I? I just need to name one.” Naming an heir would put that heir in harm’s way, but it would also allow Claude to teach them all the things they needed to know, and give Shahnaz a happy life without causing rumours.

“I suppose,” Faridoon said. “It’s not what Kings or Queens of the past have usually done, your Majesty, but it is possible. Though it is normally only done when the monarch in question is near death and has no chance of producing an heir before that.”

Morbid, but okay. But it also meant he didn’t need to name an heir any time soon. He just had to indicate that there would be someone there should something happen, and then the fears of the court would be allayed. “Your counsel is appreciated, Faridoon,” he said. He had a lot to think about, and he had to have a conversation with Shahnaz.

-

“I’m tired of trying to read,” Shahnaz complained, looking at the book on her lap with no small amount of frustration. “I want to go to bed. Can you read the rest of the story?” After that, she paused. “Please?”

“Finish the page, and I’ll tell you a story,” he said, pointing to where she’d left off. Claude supposed it was his own fault that she was struggling to read this, because he wasn’t a very good teacher, but Shahnaz was bright and he wanted her to be able to read on her own. She’d enjoy it much more when she could.

She grumbled, but she went back to the book, struggling with the last handful of sentences on the page. She was getting noticeably better after the month he’d spent teaching her in his spare time. People had started to pick up on how much time he spent with her, and started questioning why she was still around. He hadn’t been able to have the conversation with her yet about if she wanted to stay; he was afraid she’d say no, somehow.

When she was done, she settled down underneath the blankets and looked expectantly up at him. He smiled down at her, and began the tale. “Once upon a time, there was a young boy,” he said, “and he was scared of lots and lots of things.

“He was scared that when he grew up, he would be ugly. He was scared that his family wouldn’t love him, that no one would care about him, and he would be alone. It was never going to be true, but it scared him anyway.

“He was afraid that bad people would hurt him and the people he cared about, and that when it came down to it, it was better that no one cared about him at all.”

“This isn’t a very nice story,” Shahnaz said. She was frowning at him.

“Shh, it gets better later,” he said, smiling at her fondly. “He travelled somewhere new where he hoped no one would ever be angry with him again, but they still were. But when he did that, he suddenly found himself somewhere he belonged. People cared about him, even when he tried to keep them away. They protected him when people came to hurt him, and were there for him when he needed it.

“He kept trying to make a better future for everyone. And as he tried, he grew from a little boy into a man, almost before he realised it was happening. Bad things happened, and good things happened, and one day he decided it was time to go home.”

“Why would he want to go home if he was so scared before?” she asked.

Claude paused for a moment. “Because he was bigger, and braver, and the things that made him so scared before seemed very far away. And when he got home, he was happy. His parents were happy to see him, and he wasn’t scared anymore. He got to keep making that better future, but this time at home, with the people he’d left years before.

“But then things that always scared him before started to come back. He was worried that people would stop liking him, because he felt like he was similar to the person he’d been before. He was worried that he would leave no one behind who still loved him.

“And then someone very special arrived, without him even expecting it,” he said, taking a moment to ruffle Shahnaz’s hair. “And he worried, still, that this special person would be sad because of him. He was worried that he wouldn’t be able to protect her, and he wouldn’t be able to pass anything on to her in the future because of that.

“But she also helped him to realise something. When he ran away from home, he did it so he could change the future. And when he came back home, it was to make the future better there too. But he’d spent so long worrying about the future that he forgot to enjoy himself in the present. So he decided, once and for all, that he just wanted to be happy.”

He stopped speaking, and Shahnaz looked up at him. She wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t frowning either. “Is that the end of the story?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “But the rest of the story hasn’t been written yet. And you,” he said, gently tapping her nose, “get to choose what happens next.”

“I think he should keep being happy,” she said. “It sounds like he had a really sad life, and if people come to hurt the special girl then he can shoot them with a bow and arrow!”

Claude chuckled. “So what if I told you that the special girl was you?” he asked. “If I asked you if you wanted to stay, and if you wanted me to be your father, even if it might be a bit scary sometimes, what would you say?”

“I already knew the girl was me,” she said, and if she’d been standing up Claude knew she would have puffed out her chest proudly. “That’s why I said that.”

Claude very nearly cried. Skies above, she was the sweetest thing. “Thank you, Shahnaz,” he said, and he leaned over to kiss her forehead. “You can stay as long as you please, and I promise you that the boy in the story will be a very, very happy man.”

**Author's Note:**

> Cue Claude's mother complaining that she's too young to be a grandmother (aka the scene that was meant to be in this fic but it didn't fit the tone)
> 
> Thank you for reading! I had a lot of fun with this one. If you have any thoughts about this fic or ideas for other fics in this series (I have three more on my prompt list!) please leave a comment or say hi on my twitter @samariumwriting (I'm also running a fic giveaway there if you happen to be interested in that).


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